Freer trade outside the EU

Yesterday the government issued an excellent document setting out the basis on which we will trade from 1 January 2021 as an independent state and member of the WTO. We will set out own common tariff for the rest of the world which will apply unless we have a Free Trade Agreement with the counter party.

Our tariff is lower, simpler and easier than the EU one we currently have to offer to non EU countries. It takes tariffs off items we cannot grow or produce for ourselves. It takes tariffs down to zero for products manufacturers in the UK need to help them make things here. So cotton, and various engineered tools drop to zero for example.

It takes all tariffs that are under 2% to zero to save all the admin. It takes fiddly tariffs down to the nearest whole number. It takes tariffs off energy saving, recycling and renewables. The tariff on thermostats for example disappears.

The Secretary of State for Trade confirms two crucial matters. Firstly, she makes it clear this will apply from 1 January 2021, so there are no plans for any delays to our full exit. Secondly, she confirms there will be no tariffs between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The EU will not be allowed to wrestle Northern Ireland into their customs union and out of our common customs system.

Many of us MPs wanting to implement the referendum have been pressing for just such an outcome for many months.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

Formula57, No it isn’t good news. From what I’ve seen of the tariffs, it is a copy and paste job from the EU tariff schedule. That schedule may suit “Fortress EU” – eg: protection of Italy’s rice industry – but what suits the EU doesn’t necessarily suit us.

Essentially the civil service has been bone idle, instead of thinking through the implications for us. Having taken orders from the EU for 47 years, the civil service has lost the ability to actually work, including failing to consult our industries.

Indeed but we need more we we need the ability to compete with cheap energy, a bonfire and red tape and a much slimmed down state.

Lord Hall today in the Telegraph:- The young are beginning to see the true value of the BBC and good journalism.

Dream on mate. They have almost zero interest in the BBC and there is almost no good journalism at the BBC at all. It is a left wing, pro EU, climate alarmist, anti-Trump propaganda outfit. And one that is funded unfairly and is virtually unaccountable. Very boring too.

Lifelogic, Essentially that means people who can do a job should be allowed to get on with it by the government. Instead of the government forever trying to pick winners. Rather than trying to copy Churchill, Boris should copy Adenauer.

As an example today we got more unscientific claptrap and blatant propaganda:-

Climate change: Top 10 tips to reduce carbon footprint revealed By Roger Harrabin (Camb. English) the BBC environment analyst reporting on some misleading stuff from the Sustainability Research Institute at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds.

I assume this is a new department of divinity. Physics and logic seems to be beyond them.

The question has to be why are, for example, Type 1 diabetic, BAME, over 40’s not “shielded” according to the governments shielding protocol? Why are they still expected to work? Why will they be expected to take their reception age children to school in the next few days? Really these basic questions need to be pressed with the government!

I also wonder if these figures expose how poor the NHS is at insulin contol of patients in, for example, intensive care? Given the constant blood sugar testing and adjustment of insulin pump or injections needed normally is there really the NHS manpower to do this constantly for diabetic patients on the wards when patients cannot do it themselves?

And many of is have waited for many years for this and other benefits from Leaving the EU.

Where can one read the UK’s new tariff schedule ? I ask as there are one or two good stuffs that we cannot grow here and membership of the EU makes importing them more expensive.

The real winners from all this will be non-EU countries. Well at least I hope so. I hope the UK can import cheaper items produced elsewhere so helping those poorer less developed countries and their people. Fair trade and access to good jobs and wealth are a direct out of poverty. Not taxing those that have only to waste it.

I read that Professor Brian Cox says – trust in science could be eroded if misused by politicians. Scientists are concerned they will be blamed for government decisions after ministers have said they are “following the science”.

No what destroys trust in science Brian is when so many so called “scientists” suffer from duff, deluded, unquestioning, group think science in BBC mode. Thinking they can predict the climate in 100 years without even knowing all or even most of the inputs (because they have a powerful computer and some modelling software). But then belief in CLIMATE Armageddon and a climate extinction event seem to be compulsory at the BBC.

Cox seems a rather confused physicist to me. Always (quite rightly) praising and quoting Richard Feynman when his views and approach seems to be almost the complete opposite of Feynman‘s.

How did he even get into Manchester University with such a duff A levels one wonders and then get a first it seems?

Trade is vital but then any cogent, sane person would countenance such a view but of far more importance is the return of the UK’s sovereign rights, the reassertion of the UK’s constitutional independence and the full removal of all laws and precedences that have been imposed since 1974 from the Statute book

We also need new and prohibitive laws to prevent further incursions from pro-EU bodies, politicians and UK-hating public servants who seek to continually bind the UK into the EU legislative web. This Gramsci inspired strategy has been part of the seditious process for decades and accelerated when filth Labour came to power

As an aside. Stop protecting Labour, their current and past leaders-PMs, their MPs and their public sector from harm. Patel spoke yesterday about the ‘stain on this nation’s conscience’. Lift the lid. Lift the carpet. Let’s see what Labour is hiding and trying to conceal. Let’s see that army of skeletons in the closet. We know Labour knew

The recent David Starkey interview with Peter Whittle ‘so what you are saying’ is very good. Let us hope he is wrong about post illness Boris (half broken with sentimental, greenish wife). I still think Boris can get real, get people back to work, ignore his greenish partner and ditch HS2 and all the green crap. But then perhaps I am dreaming.

Thank you for all of your hard work in helping achieve this. Now we need a concerted effort by the government to get the country back to work. There’s little evidence of that judging by the televised media’s continuing emphasis on public sector concerns and selection of interviewees, largely to the exclusion of commercial representatives.

Rolls Royce cuts its workforce by 9k and slashes costs by £1bn. When will the UK’s bottomless pit of a unionized, leftist public sector start this most important process to alleviate the increasing burden on the private sector or is this process just too much of a bind for this One-Nation Tory PM?

@ukretired123; “This CV19 is a watershed moment for everyone regardless of everything else.”

Yes, well at least in the last 40 years or so, we are likely going to need the ‘State’ more than ever, just as we did in the post WW2 era, be it a Labour or conservative govt – unless we truly descend into a society were the survival of the fittest is all that matters of course.

@Dominic; What a silly rant, more so than your average daily rants, what has the global downturn in the civil airline industry got to do with trade unionism, never mind the “leftist public sector”?!…

But on this latest news, whilst i see no reason why the govt should be supporting the commercial airlines I see every reason why RR (jet engines) needs to be given every support necessary, their products are not just for the civil aviation industry.

“their products are not just for the civil aviation industry” indeed but they mainly are and there is going to be a huge surplus of capacity and a down turn of activity in this area for quite some time.

Cut all the subsidies for renewables and get them to build some sensible cheap and on demand natural gas generating capacity.

Quite; it’s one of the few jewels in the crown that are left from the destruction wrought by useless managers, left-wing trades’ unions and feckless politicians over the years. No doubt the PM will see this as a great opportunity to bounce back, ably supported by Grant Shapps who seems to be bent on ensuring the closure of more of our aerospace industry. Given the dreadful media we have in the UK, led by such boorish, ignorant, loudmouths as Piers Morgan, I do sympathise with the political class, but they have to have courage and reach out to the country over the heads of those whose screeching from the sidelines threatens our very existence and all that we have worked for over the years.

Dominic, You are right. The government should stop wagging its finger at us, and instead put its own house in order. Government needs to continually ask itself “should the government be doing this?” and indeed “should this be done at all?”.

Let us have no more fake redundancies when a government employee is rehired as a contractor the following Monday to artificially reduce the headcount. We should look at New Zealand for example, to make government departments shrink drastically – because they’re doing less.

Letting countries that use taxpayer subsidy for their exports a free run is close on lunacy. All it does is undermine any chance of the UK becoming self reliant.

All taxes and duties should be on a reciprocal basis. By that I don’t mean the EU cherry picking version. If a Country hands massive taxpayer subsidies to their agriculture – sure we can get cheap food in the UK from it. But as that undermines our own industry making it un-competitive it leaves the UK exposed to the whims of foreign powers.

Ian, Indeed. Both China and Germany artificially benefit from mercantilism, where their currency is set too low. China’s because of the totalitarian control of the Chinese economy by the communists (ie: Trump is correct), and Germany because they are an advanced productive economy benefiting from a very average currency, the Euro.

How will tariffs in NI differ from the rest of the UK bearing in mind the agreement that EU standards will still apply? Will NI be able to import goods from the mainland UK in order to avoid EU tariffs or standards?

This looks a sensible series of measures to simplify the tariff regime. The government needs to apply the same principles of common sense and simplification to its other tax and regulatory regimes. Post C-19, like Humpty Dumpty, it will not be possible to put the economy as we knew it back together again. Too many businesses will have gone bust. It’s participants will need as few state inspired impediments as can be devised for a new, more efficient economy to emerge.

If the tariff is 0% it does not exist so you don’t need a form. I worked inaircreighyfor a while. Importing and exporting to and from non EU countries was simple enough back in the 1980s and 1990s. I am sure technology will have been used to make it even simpler. Keep calm and carry on. It will all be fine.

What these proposals don’t tackle, in part they think it is someone else remit. Is a lot of the UK’s manufacturers now base their operations in less hostile domains, because the rules, regulations and taxes in the UK penalize success.

That then becomes another nail in the coffin of UK manufacturing. It ensures Government is not achieving its purpose of securing the wealth, health of its people.

Until Government tackles the now bizarre underlining structures of the UK’s command and control, they are just advocating decline.

There has neve been a better time to get a grip, throw everything out and start over. If Government hasn’t seen it yet that is what the rest of the competitive world has set out to do. Dog eat dog, some suprizing winners and all the usual failures who have dogmatically lived in the past.

As reported in previous years with similar ‘noises’ on Breitbart 07/05/2016, Daily Mail 02/06/2016, Daily Express 28/11/2017 and Metro 19/01/2018, that is the annual trainee scheme for the BBC World Service.
Available within bbc.co.uk careers
And I guess IG has not read the actual trainee job offer, but guess he read it in his usual quality newspaper with the usual made up anger destined to its scrutinising readership.

It is entrenched across the public sector from the civil service down; it arises from a pernicious doctrine of collective guilt, leading to an equally pernicious doctrine of collective “compensation” – and completely ignores the history of all civilisations other than our own. See the excellent work on this subject by the sociologist, Eric Kaufman. I imagine that confronted with the realities and priorities of today, many MPs who are only too sadly aware of all that is wrong in this regard, feel wary and anxious about taking on the formidable interests vested in these destructive ideologies.

Sounds positive, the next one to deal with is VAT. What to exempt, what the general level should be, whether we should retain it or introduce some other form of sales/activity tax. Whatever we do should aim at encouraging an entrepreneurial society with a simplified regime of tax in all its forms to enrich GB Ltd and all who sail in her.

Tariffs should not be set in stone: they should have a sunset clause so that over a five year cycle they are all reviewed in depth and revised as necessary given changes in demographics, technology, safety standards and experience of changes in import and export volumes.

Perhaps a good role for a revitalised and appropriately resourced Board of Trade, with cross-party parliamentary representatives

I would have thought that all tariffs can be changed at any time, if either they are not working, or are producing the wrong results or problems.
That is surely the whole point of being independent.
We make out own rules.

At last after years of talking, we are finally seeing some real forward proposals which certainly look encouraging and positive.

But to change them takes effort by the Government of the day. And any change leads to some winners, who will stay quiet, and some losers, who will moan. So it is far too easy for Government to do nothing and leave the status quo as it is.

The purpose of a sunset clause is to force the Government of the day to make an explicit decision about the continuing appropriateness of the regulation. It’s a protection from our own laziness, not the intransigence of other parties.

Of course there will be tariffsbetween NI and the rest of the UK. That is clear from the Protocol. All goods going from GB to NI have to pay tariffs – unless it is proved they are not at risk of being moved on to Ireland (very hard to prove) or not being processed in NI. I suspect you never read the Protocol

The transfer of goods from any part of the UK &NI to any other part is no business of the EU. Any transfer between the UK&NI to another country is ,possibly ,within the remit of the EU if it is to a country that is within their jurisdiction.
If we continue to permit traffic across our borders of goods in transit from parts of the EU to other parts of the EU, then it is their responsibility to satisfy themselves that the consigned is sealed TIR at start and finish of its journey. We may choose to add our own seal for internal security while in transit. Shipments requiring consolidation will need to be segregated at point of entry/egress as normal.

This is truly wonderful news. I had lost all faith in the Boris administration, and bloody nearly the will to live.
This gives us more than a fighting chance.
I’m also delighted that the report on Grooming Gangs is to be published. The native British people deserve the defence of our Rule of Law.

Lynn, I’ve just looked at the government website; it will be published “later this year” and first – ” The Home Office will set up an external reference group of experts to review the research before its publication.”

They started out refusing, we demanded, we will get the full report, and we will draw the required conclusions, then we will demand the correct action. We are the Sovereigns in our great democracy. Never take ‘no’ for an answer – surely Brexit has taught us that?
PS We will also get the original c code used by Ferguson to manufacture his own dream future!

A great relief about Northern Ireland. Let us hope this spirit of national unity and independence continues throughout the proceedings.

I noticed the Spanish Foreign Minister was acidly urging no more letters, no more emails, and accusing us of wanting to stay in the EU single Market! From which I concluded they are still after Gibraltar and the fish.

I’m quite open about why I voted Brexit. I voted for it because we had lost control of our borders – we have still not regained control of our borders.

I understand fully that this was not the EU’s fault, nor the fault of migrants (of which I hold no animosity so long as they work and are law abiding.)

It was all about the state rubbing my nose in it and continuing to rub my nose in it even after I said I didn’t like not having what New Zealand has – properly controlled borders and control over numbers.

So I had a tantrum, as Andy correctly points out above.

What did they expect would happen ? (I chose the ballot box and not rioting and disobedience – unlike many favoured groups in this country.)

But Margaret, Sterling is the currency an independent Scotland would use. Are you saying you would would not want to because it is undervalued, or volatile? Perhaps you would use the Euro instead? Who would be your lender of last resort?

Sir John, I have just written to the PM and asked him to task Liz Truss with offering Australia freer trade, with us, in response to China’s outrageous conduct. I don’t care if we grant Australia privileges that aren’t immediately reciprocated. Let’s get something in place the SECOND that this transition is over – and show that we haven’t forgotten how Australia answered our calls for assistance in two world wars.

Margaret H, Do you get anything right, or do you just love living in a cloud of ignorance? At least attack Brexit for something real, not made up. The NZ Lamb 0% TRQ is 228,254 tonnes (of which NZ usually uses less than 80%). The 0% TRQ for Australia is 19,186 tonnes. These were negotiated when the UK was betrayed into the EU (EEC) by the Remain establishment.

We are asking to join with them and others like minded in trade and other mutually beneficial ventures etc.
I would expect countries to be mindful of politicians and structures in the British establishment that do not respect democratic values.

You are absolutely correct about the shocking treatment of Australia, and also New Zealand, due to Heath’s inability to recognise that, at the time, the UK was an integral part of the very best trading club in the whole world.

Sea Warrior. Lovely thought. But you do know that Australia has said that its priority is a trade deal with the EU, don’t you? The UK is in its past, not its future. It isnt 1945 any more, and Brexit has made the UK much smaller

Rondo: Australians are subjects of Her Majesty the Queen as are we. We are blood brothers, related, they are a Dominion, most of them call Britain ‘Home’. We are together in the present and the future as we were in the past. That goes for NZ and Canada too, and of course our greatest erstwhile colony the USA.
What do you think of CANZUK?

Lynn have you been to Oz during the last few years?
By examples take Melbourne or Sydney. I would offer that most of the inhabitants and workers are from some way north, or various countries in Europe.
Home is rarely Britain.
Perhaps you are thinking back to the days of 10m not 25m population?

And I would suggest that most Americans would have trouble finding Europe on a map, let alone England.

Though I do remember reading in the European newspaper some time ago that a survey among Americans suggested that 25% of their forefathers originated from Germany, with the next highest number from Ireland and about 9% tracing their ancestry to Britain.

There is much positive sentiment towards the UK here. Lots of good, highest quality, stuff – beef, wine etc. to sell to the UK at very competitive prices with enough also to trade elsewhere in the world, including with the EU, but without being controlled by it.

Aussies are realistic enough to prioritise trade with any partner they can trust. The mistakes made by the UK in the past will have no bearing whatsoever on negotiations now.

Sensible people would not wish to inflict further disruption economic damage and higher prices on the British next year while we are suffering so much anyway.
Look at it form the Brexit Party point of view and they think like this :

..” Excellent with millions out of work no-one will notice another million and …with people dropping dead in schools hospitals and care homes …who cares about losing markets and suppliers ”

I wonder who they will blame ….the economic advisers probably , honestly , this is the sort of government you used to read about in some dead beat country . A diet of childish propaganda incompetence and big hats

Newmania, Sensible people would not wish to inflict further disruption and economic damage, and higher prices, on the British next year while we are suffering so much anyway. Which is why we should leave the EU empire right away. That way we won’t have to go on paying and obeying, won’t get tied into the next MFF, and won’t extend our liability to bail out the Euro.

There’s still far to much protectionism for certain home grown products that we might also wish to -in time- export, for example; Milk products and slaughtered beef. All that is needed are the old style govt backed product & produce marketing boards and campaigns that extol the benefits and advantages of “Buying British” along with very clear country of origin/manufacture labelling.

OT, I have concerns regarding the govts wish for primary schools to return from the beginning of next month, not that I think the school environment is the problem, I’m sure schools will be able to maintain social distancing and good personal hygiene amongst the children and staff. My worry is outside the school gates, these children will need to be taken to and from school by parent or careers, the average age of these adults are within the demographics of those most likely to ignore social distancing due to the govts early and daft mixed messages that those under 40 not being at great risk, coupled to the mistaken belief that children are all but immune to the virus.

Hi Jerry, not only will no more than around 25% of primary school children be returning, but schools will implement staggered pick up and drop off times, and not allow parents onto the site. To be honest I’m not sure how that last part will work when dropping off small children – unless perhaps there will be a 2m separated queue to the gate.

@SP; As I said, the problem is not within the schools, they can be policed, and perhaps immediate area outside the school gate. The problem is going to be huddles forming some place away from the school gate – there is no way a school can implement, even with just one average class (meaning two groups of 15 [1]), staggered pick up and drop off times that would prevent this.

If the govt wants to get some children back into education I suspect, safety and social distancing wise, it would be simpler to get at least some secondary forms back first – but then most 11-16 year old children, even if it does bend the law, can be left home for a few hours whilst the parents are out doing their part-time work – ho-hum!

[1] which I understood was due to classroom SD needs, not staggered start/end times

It is a frankly silly document which really does demonstrate the foolishness of the UK position.

The biggest barrier to trade is not tariffs. With very few exceptions most tariffs are pretty low. Even in the EU.

The biggest barrier to trade is non tariff barriers. The fact that different countries have different rules for different products.

So a dishwasher manufacturer, for example, used to have to follow 28 different sets of rules to sell its product in all 28 EU countries. Thanks to the single market rules on dishwashers are the same – so the saving on all that extra bureaucracy is immense.

Brexit puts all that bureaucracy back – just for us. The Brexiteers tell us they want to set their own rules. Apparently dishwasher regulation is a matter of sovereignty. So we will now have extra bureaucratic hoops to jump through. Times this by not only ever product but every component of ever product and you end up with an almighty mess.

There will be some products which may be a bit cheaper after Brexit. But overall prices will go up to cover the extra Brexit bureaucracy. Bureaucracy brought to you by people who said they’d cut red tape but who are actually hiring 50,000 customs pen pushers and installing a border down the middle of our own country.

Plus if a producer save 0.7% on a tariff do you really think they will pass that on to a retailer? And if they do pass it on to a retailer do you really think the retailer will pass it on to a customer?

Reply What a silly post. The EU will continue to gave a single standard for dishwashers after we fully leave. We can decide whether their standard is acceptable to us or not, just as we can decide on US standards etc.

The Franco-German €500bn proposed transfer Fund is interesting. On the face of it it’s just the sort of major transfer the EU needs to be doing given the currency union and the stated intention for a political union. It’s said not to be in the form of repayable loans which will be ‘debt’ but then there are some vague weasel words about repayment through future EU budgets. No doubt any EU member state wishing to leave in the future will be requested to repay any funds received, a clever wheeze.

But it’s still only c 3% of EU GDP and most currency unions like the US the U.K. etc have much higher than that. Will member states which aren’t in the eurozone be on the hook for it – like Sweden and Denmark? I guess so.

But the eurozone is starting to do what it needs to do – full fiscal and political union. Those arguing for return to the EU by the U.K. need to address this point, so long made by eurosceptics but denied by EU advocates.

When you look at it, on the whole, the government aren’t doing badly. They are up against a tremendous amount of left wing socialist views at every turn, even from within the Tory party. And unfortunately, the PM is engaged to one, and of course one’s spouse must invariably influence one’s thinking from time to time.

If we could just say no to Huwaaei, HS2, reduce the overseas budget to a more realistic figure, stop illegals turning up daily…we’d be doing even better!

Those on here who have never imported nor exported anything in their lives play armchair expert and I see in every post they make their lack of knowledge.
Just parroting what they read in the Guardian and Independent.

Over decades I experienced little difference in complexity in trading inside or outside the EU.
And these new simpler tariff schedules will make it even easier.

Surely the transitional talks with EU should be brought to the WTO directly instead of being held bilaterally thats if we really want to get Free Trade talks going. The next EU Council meeting is scheduled for 18th 19th June so it’s too late now for FTA with them in a bilateral way.

I would appreciate it if you air your thoughts on a cryptocurrency pound. Call it the bitpound or iPound. It occurs to me that a BoE backed stablecoin could be a huge winner, and would facilitate trade.

The Withdrawal agreement annex on Northern Ireland is a classic of EU legalise. It makes the default situation that the EU tariffs will apply on trade from GB to NI except in the case of consumer goods that are not “at risk” of ending up in the Republic. And it gives the EU a veto on which goods are not “at risk”. It also explicitly states that EU tariffs will apply to any component parts from GB used by any manufacturing in NI.

We should fully expect the EU to say that with the open border between ROI and NI no goods from GB are not “at risk” of ending up in the Republic and therefore that EU tariffs will apply on all goods entering NI from GB. Any other reading is naivety of Theresa May proportions.

We should also not think of these negotiations as being purely about trade. There are for example dangerous clauses in the political declaration in tying the U.K. into EU defence arrangements which we would be obliged to follow as if still a member state.

My understanding of the exchange above is that PvL did not say it will make little difference.
He pointed to a possible extension of Dutch services to the rest of Europe (likely to be to the detriment of British ones) and to possibly more tulip growers in Britain.
With pink-tinted glasses like those Edward2 appears to wear that will make little difference.

@hefner: Indeed. As an early example: The 397 companies that chose the Netherlands in 2019 (78 from Britain) mainly operate in services. They are expected to invest about 4bn euros in the first three years.
I would expect an acceleration after a no-deal Brexit.

Then why haven’t they done it already? Possibly because the UK is more garden and flower friendly than the EU countries, or maybe because we actually buy stuff which most of the EU countries cannot afford as they are mostly skint and rely on handouts?

19 of the 27 take handouts to keep afloat. The remainder pay. Surely you know this being an expert on the EU? Why did you pick the better ones? Perhaps because you think it proves your case. Didn’t mention Greece, Romania etc did you?

The bulbs this year are squirrel food in my garden.I will therefore be buying from local gardens in the green shoots stage, Tariffs increased .. no I don’t think so as our collective aim is to increase home grown agricultural products which will need initially the attraction of all garden products,imported or otherwise.

Sir John, can you please address the question of Northern Ireland, which (according to the Institute for Government’s gloss of 5 February 2020) will be “obliged to stick to the rules of the EU’s Single Market, in areas such as technical regulation of goods, agricultural and environmental production and regulation, state aid and other areas of north–south co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It will remain part of the EU’s Single Electricity Market.
“Northern Ireland would need to automatically adopt any changes to these regulations made by the EU. New areas of regulation can be added to the protocol through agreement at the Joint Committee.
“Northern Ireland’s compliance with EU rules is enforced by the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. EU institutions will also ‘enforce’ arrangements relating to customs in Northern Ireland.”

a-tracey – It’s far more of a Trojan horse than that.
In the revised NI protocol, Article 5(2) of the Protocol lays down the following criteria: “Goods subject to commercial processing in Northern Ireland are considered at risk *unless* the Joint Committee deems them otherwise.” [My emphasis].
So it will depend on how the Joint Committee operates, who sits on it, and what its ‘Joint’ agenda turns out to be. It might mean 75% of the goods inflow, given also that NI is forced to adopt EU regulations on a host of EU technical rules and product standards set out in the 38 pages of Annex 2 to the Protocol, which the October 2019 HoC commentary states ‘confers full jurisdiction on the CJEU to oversee the operation of the EU law applying to Northern Ireland, and the EU’s executive agencies will also enjoy their normal powers within Northern Ireland.

That the Protocol ‘binds Northern Ireland closely to the EU’ has already been bluntly stated in parliamentary Select Committee reports. The only tiny chink of light is that a future NI Assembly might cancel it in four years’ time. (Though by then the EU might easily dissuade NI from doing so by making life impossible for GB-NI trade.)

The EU idea is to take NI so far away from UK law and put such difficulties in the way of trade with the mainland, that the inhabitants will for all practical purposes cease to be in union with GB. The JC is their current figleaf.

from BBC news website:-
Up to 30,000 tests a day which were never intended to diagnose individuals with Covid-19 are distorting the UK’s figures on testing, according to BBC Radio 4’s More or Less programme.
Producer Kate Lamble says these tests are carried out by universities and statisticians to study the spread of the disease across the country but the Department of Health and Social Care acknowledges they are not being used to diagnose cases.
With the government aiming to show it can keep daily testing above 100,000, our producer says the tests make it possible for the government to say the target has been hit.

On 15 May, for example, the government reported 136,486 tests but we can only be sure 69,900 were carried out if we discount these non-diagnostic tests and tests posted to people’s homes which were not necessarily returned.

Boris stated the new target was 200,000 by 1st June.
So will non-diagnostic tests continue to be included as if infection testing carries on at a pace! More subtle cheating?

so HMRC sent me a rather large cheque today, they have my bank account they could easily have paid it direct into the bank. so they forced me to go to town and queue at bank unnecessarily.

drove past three (must be keeping each other company eh) tiny little teenage girls in police uniform (does this mean I am getting old?) pointing speed cameras at people driving at about 5 mph through roadworks where the speed limit is temporarily down to 30 for the roadworks. meanwhile cars still getting nicked elsewhere in town.

Covid 19 is NOT a coronavirus, common colds or flu are NOT cured in 24 hours by anti-inflammation drugs.

Hydroxychloroquine DOES NOT cure the flu or the common cold. But this stuff does in 24 hours completely cure ‘Covid 19’. How do I know? I have videos of dozens of doctors speaking to crowds of hundreds saying the drug the FDA banned, hydroxychloroquine, that Trump keeps tipping us off about 100% cures even those at deaths door within 24 hours. This drug is for treating chronic inflammation caused by a bad diet.

Since when has a coronavirus been cured by an anti inflammation drug? So we no longer need vaccines. It seems Covid 19 is caused by processed food and a bad diet. New scientific research papers say everyone who dies has a precondition of ‘chronic inflammation’ caused by processed food.

Hydroxychloroquine has already been tested for the flu on humans and failed. So my question is why is it working now when Coronaviruses make up to 40% of the seasonal flu virus. In other words, it should have been at least 40% effective in previous years, but never was.

Also, all the vaccines in the marking, all 20 of them are RNA vaccines (never authorized for use before), why is no one making a vaccine from the actual virus? Why are they all mimicking protein spikes etc?

So M Gove wants no documentation on goods travelling from NI to GB and also to keep the open border with ROI- well good luck with that- am sure when the time comes HM Government and the EU won’t be found wanting.

Every delivery travels with a docket make it digital I don’t see the problem with this. When freight goes on a ship they charge more than a standard crossing and the crossings are of sufficient duration to do the checks before they dock.

Why do anti Malaria drugs also have some benefit with Covid 19? Malaria is NOT a virus, it is cell poisoning caused by an insect, an external environmental factor. So here is more evidence we are dealing with an immune response, not a coronavirus. We have coronaviruses every year and they make upto 40% of the annual flu virus, so why has no one mentioned anti-malaria drugs cure the flu? Because they don’t, (because Covid 19 in not a coronavirus), or if it is that is not the prominent factor that is causing death.

ed2, your description of malaria as being a cell poison is wrong. Malaria is caused by a single celled organism. When a mosquito bites it injects saliva containing the malaria parasite. As the parasite is now in the blood it travels to the liver where it enters the liver cells and replicates (and is also hidden from the host’s immune system). It infects new red cells where it is again hidden from an immune response and reproduces asexually, bursting the cell, which releases the parasites who can then travel to the liver to start the cycle again. If the host is bitten by a mosquito it will also ingest the parasite, which travels from the mosquito’s stomach to its salivary glands ready to be injected into the next victim. Simplified description but I hope it’s of interest.

Very many thanks Sir John , keep beating that drum of yours!
Now can someone tell me just what these EU and U.K. negotiators talk about.
Both sides must just sit and drink coffee ?
Why not say to the EU
We will not touch your fishing ground, and you will not touch our ground!

Right now we are going to go WTO, it Is our Right.
This non sence well stop for good ! Goodbye

Under the new dispensation for World Trade, will the Tory party continue to sell off our best businesses such as Arm Holdings sold to Softbank Group (an unfocused conglomerate, experiencing a little local difficulty) in order to feed the insatiable greed of the so-called investment banks that infest our financial hub? Is there actually any hope for UK plc if a typical Tory minister does his industrial apprenticeship, if he does one at all, not in productive industry but in the parasitical world of investment banking?

Sadly I do not have a lot of trust or faith in the World Trade Organization and not sure its heading in the same direction as World Health Organization.
World trade has serious structural problems along with global warming.
The £ is under pressure as the economy slips into a deep recession and may collapse leading to IMF bailout. The Euro is the strongest European currency
I also feel Scotland has a right to agree its own trade with the EU and closer lineament as it overwhelmingly voted to stay in the family of Europe.

I agree that Scotland should decide its own destiny. Should you wish to do what Germany dictates rather than a Union decided Government, then go Independent.

Good luck with that.

Oil value plummets over time, English Civil Service jobs come back over the border, military bases and associated infrastructure jobs come back. Customers might decide they won’t buy Scottish anymore, border checks required in the EU from a 3rd Country etc.
Sounds like economic suicide to me, but go do it!

Currencies are mostly about confidence and partly about the decades of successful existence a currency has had.
I hope you are right when thinking the Euro has a good future ahead of it.
As it does affect us here in the UK.
Its strength depends mainly on how strong the German economy is in the future.

The WHO is part of the corrupt UN. The WTO is not. Sterling has bounced and if you think the Euro is strong, invest in it! I don’t even keep the small change.
Scotland voted explicitly to Remain in the U.K. The Brexit referendum was a nationwide poll and the majority was to leave.

What is the NHS surcharge for migrants with a planned increase, from £400 to £624, that will go ahead in October?

Who does it apply to?

If working do they also pay Employee’s NI and have Employer’s NI made on their behalf?

Is this for everyone except EU nationals?

If British people pay National Insurance over £9516 per annum, how much has the court today said if a migrant earns below they don’t have to pay for their health cover? This is bizarre – why are the very people thinking we should all pay more for the NHS and pay them more not want to pay towards the NHS?

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, and graduated from Magdalen College Oxford. He is a Distinguished fellow of All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has set up an investment management business, was both executive and non executive chairman of a quoted industrial PLC, and chaired a manufacturing company with factories in Birmingham, Chicago, India and China. He is the MP for Wokingham, first elected in 1987.